If you drive out through the farmland far enough,
eventually you'll come to the villages of four-bedroom houses,
and this is where I'm from.

At night, sometimes, while I'm back visiting you can hear me say,
"O Birdland, my how you've grown. But all the while
all the places that line my memories remain."

Now us children are spread from shore to shore,
on different land carrying different flags.
Now Birdland, waiting, grows on;
stretching to reach for the lost and the wandering,
shifting, unsure of what is missing.

"O Birdland all the while, all the houses
that inhabit our past remain."

Sometimes in the morning I hear a birdsong out our kitchen window,
But when I look nothing is ever there.
With you gone I get so faded
That I don’t even know the name of the state I’m in.

I feel you in my skin, carrying you everywhere I go.
With you, I know my blood is not bounded
By the lines or curves of my body.

At night I would imagine when we would be breathless,
Thinking of the mere molecules of space between us.
Unconscious, I am shapeless until you,
Intersections of flesh and bodylines.

I had never told anyone that I didn’t think the sea was beautiful,
Or dreamt the Atlantic Ocean had swallowed me whole.
I did not choose my blood but it chose my body,
Bounded birdsong of something missing, unnatural.

One day my bodylines will burst,
Wings will tear out this back and block the sun.
Say Wind, feel the weight of my face on your porous surface
Like water but thinner.
Where it feels like open space,
I’ll stay until I see your face again.

Feeling of being lifted running through my legs,
Train on bridge looks the only way it can:
Like suspended seconds holding for unison
Above a hundred feet of air ending in water.

Lights with on stuck switches twitch,
People watch as I look out the window nervously,
Sleights of hand go noticed
And hiding is never as easy as not being seen.

Lifting feeling rises to my sides while still struck
To think that this is all somewhere,
To someone,
Right?

Is nowhere ever just that cut clean?

Even with train on ground I feel left there.
Shoulders tensed, eyes cautiously cast down;
I am waiting, waiting, waiting.

Heading down the ninety-nine
Keeping in imagined lines
Phasing out of trying times
Blurring open space

Heading north to Sacramento
West to San Francisco
Anywhere you go I’ll go
Anywhere you want to be I’ll be there, too.


Fading down the ninety-nine
Pretending we all feel fine
Ignoring toyotas in the sky
Wanting sunlight on our skin

Heading south down to L.A.
East to any other state
Anywhere you go I will be
Anywhere you want I will go there, too.

Every word I write is already known because these are the lines of your body.
Images of what you could be, outlines of what you have been,
Traced in chalk around pieces of paper all scattered on my floor.
You are every tree in this forest and at night when I’m here alone,
When it’s all breathing and no sleep, I feel saplings of you around me.
Every word I write is already known because these are the lines of your body,
And now my songs of you are heard at last.

It’s been one month since I’ve started over,
       two years from the initial breakup of pangaea,
       and even though I’ve been doing things wrong,
       in the morning I always find myself breathing.

                                                     ­                                                                 ­      (Why am I not invincible yet?
                                                            ­           I still let doubt and indecision lead me down twisted alleys
                                      that I don’t ever want to see again. Why am I the only one who feels like this?)

,     , there is no more time to waste asking these questions
        when you realize that everyone has cracks they are covering for
                    with their eyes or speech or faith.


                                                        ­               No more


                              from this  moment forward I will write however I want

Tired for one last night eyes closing
And for the last day given all that I could want, a memory.
Flightless with the illusion of flight, wind bending across my face,
A white stripe playing across the radio all to grey to black.
A meal, I love you, comfortable and the kitchen in the evening,
Where it was more real to me there than anywhere else.
My list of things to do tomorrow growing without worry
Even if it means my ghosts will always be incomplete,
I will have to be okay with that I made it what I could.
If I sleep and don’t wake up tomorrow I made it what I could.

You know all those different types of telephones:
Home phones, office phones, and cell phones, too?
Well they all work two ways: yours and mine.

So why is it that you’re always the one
Who gets to listen to my messages?

Telephones are just homegrown conspiracies
Hatched by others to make you think you’re close to me.
And all the words you say that you think are giving me pleasure,

Well I hate to tell you
But they’re not.

Calm reserved no surprise cross this plane
Stick to your words unless they’re wrong
Time is left until you stop.  St. Thomas’
Eyes are scanning my face again, but I
Give in and look to the side.  I am no
Longer a man, I am keys I think of hymns
And monsters coming from the collecting
Mass of the damper pedal being held down.
My days now start at seven a.m. and end at
                Midnight I eat and breathe with a schedule
                Now twenty-four keys to mess up. But through
                All the tire and through my haze here is where
                I realize I can’t stop smiling. So what is left
                To say but thank you for taking me? Thank
                You for teaching me. And I hope what
                You give to me I can give back.

i found music in a cummings poem once
        and at night when i think about it really hard
                i can make my handwriting beautiful







                                i am certain of nothing in my life but music

                                                                                                              and you

and there were the flowers that hung above us
outside the cafeteria, the quad. There was the
first warm day of the year and the walk we took,
and there was the wind. There was the month in
winter when we did nothing but talk; there was
the rain, then summer, then the falling leaves.
There was the trip to San Diego, the trip to
Germany and Austria, there was the cabin

and there was the night in August when
I decided I could not sleep so instead I wrote.
There was a moment I remember when I began
to feel that I was nothing but my memories,
and there was the morning we went to breakfast
instead of going to class. There were the nights
when I had panic attacks and you would come
and talk and I would feel better

and there was orchestra, there were the notes
written back and forth. There were the chords
we learned and put to good use, the needless
trips to stores, every item I own is a Symbol
of a memory I can not live again. There was
the grass and music playing off in the distance,
there are the goodbyes too painful but always
in my mind, the hours devoted to practicing.

There were eighteen years and then there was this.

and after you there was another friend
but her hair was not brown but blonde instead.
And after my first there was no one for a while,
but I’m sure there will be another boy
with a swimmer’s build and that look in his eye.
And there will be another and another
until I die. And even if I’m surrounded by
you and all the ones I love and loved I
will be alone, truly surrounded by only my
memories. And I will remember that
there were the moments when I smiled

and there was hope, I am not just my
memories I hope I am not. There is water
and love, I can not end until I end.
I will be what is after this. And after
that I will be whatever that is. And after
and after until I end. And after

Dear Catherine,

Hope is a four-letter word
That only gets worse as you progress.
We can live in a house without any mirrors
And be beautiful anytime we want,
But when there is something uncertain
In your carefully guarded breath,
I know that you’re trying not to think
Of what is really going on with your hands.

Catherine of Crumbling Cities that seem more stable,
Of the smell of smoke, fresh and delicious, that eats us up whole,
There will be seconds stuck as a knife in your skin when you know
You can’t forget stolen ideas, like a box of letters not sent.

And it is then you will finally understand
Hope is a four-letter word that may never work out.
But if you know instead,
Know like a wig won’t hide you,
Then you will have a chance.
I know I love you, you do as well.

Dear Claudia,

There are two thousand miles between us
And I cannot possibly find my way.
There are two thousand miles between us both
And countless roads and cities and hopes and fears
Separate us.

Claudia, I called and called and heard your voice
I held in my hands letters from you and pictures, too.
I held in my hands all the envelopes.

I am not strong enough to see you live,
To understand that your life and my life may continue
Without ever intersecting again. Claudia, I called
And when we were finished I’d say
‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow or the next day,
Or the next day, I’m sure’ even though
We both understood that was not true.
Claudia when we were finished
We’d say ‘I love you’ and both understand
That had to be true in order for me to continue.

Claudia, I am not strong enough to know
There are two thousand miles between us.
I still expect to see you wherever I go.
I love you, I miss you, and I am still here.

Dear Etta,

I will stay awake for you.
And as you sleep my prying eyes
Will keep the silence and the stillness.
And when you wake I will take your hand in mine,
We will walk and you will lead.
And, oh, I have seen your chest rise
Again yet again and, oh, I have seen
Your subtle movements before.
But there is one who now knows you better than I,
We had such a short time together
I will not be able to forget and still,
I will stay awake for you.

A relationship that shows like glass and feels like movement
        how can what is growing inside me not be inside you, too?
I’ve been silent and gone for a year, calling into question
        every interaction, every syllable of speech, odd phrase,
                and questions of want and right.
Have we not hands,     , are we not now bold?
Wear the blueprints of your palms proudly.

When I have chromatic visions of your body neath these eyelids
        I want to move forward until I’m lying next to you.
More to the point, I want the space between us to not exist and
        I want to be able to hear you breathe when I’m dreaming.

Come to me when you’re covered in mud,
        splattered with blood and impressions of other’s hands
        from your neck down.
Whether you’re tattered or beaten or just tired
        come to me when you’re stable or bleak,
        I’ll tell you I haven’t seen you in two months and
I’m worried you haven’t noticed.

Morning song is dawn and gray and cool and black.
               It’s six a.m. or five to five
               But you’re not sure just where you’ve been
               And you feel gray and blue and black.

There are thoughts
              And five (to five) or six of them
Aim at where you are and show the distance
              To where you want to be.

Morning song is done.

Morning song is fog, maybe not, and the owl
              (or whatever is living in your roof) knocks repeatedly until
There is nothing left to do but stay eyes open

In the sun, in July, it looks the same outside.
But only if you squint.
I memorized the floor plans,
Of where everything should go,
           Should’ve gone,

Superimposed memories of the hallways,
They line the bedrooms, and
Panic attack if it doesn’t all fit
      if these aren’t the right people
      if the furniture has changed.

Want to put it all back the way it used to be,
Needs to be, or should be, and
Panic attack if I think about ghosts too long
      if I think about winter too much
      if I accept it is not the same
      and never will be.

Retry
Resend
Repair

A year without finishing anything
Identical twins with different faces
Wires connected to every answer: trip trip trip
Then a click and it’s all sky sky sky
Everything you’ve ever wanted, just above
A year without poetry

Repair
Resend
Retry

There is a list on one hand that reads:
Breathe, wake up, left then right (repeat).
When I look at other people, the only thing I realize
Is that my hands are empty.

I am seven empty bottles and the feeling
That I haven’t been sober in twenty-four hours.
With the patterns on the rug all of the time,
With blues and yellows and brighter colors,
No matter what I’d choose nothing but your smile;
Warmth inside and teeth like shiny glass
Where there’s room enough for me.

Inadvertently surprised, when told
        you could already see it in my eyes
        And soon would spread
                                to my fingers

No longer unquestionable
        that the day encompasses light
        and that sleep brings rest

Connected to others through invisible
        undetectable pools of consciousness
        and experience, connected by more than just looks

Spread
        to your fingertips and now alone

Nine a.m. at travel stance;
Shave, then shower, packing by ten.
Travel stance is stuck in a seat for two hundred miles;
Two days later and another two hundred, then again.

Bags always near, clothes always everywhere.
Travel Stance is looking nice everywhere else except where you sleep.

I’m tired of feeling California-Time with my head and London-Time with my heart.
I don’t want to deal with zone differences anymore but I want you back.
Can you feel me, can you hear my subdivided heartbeat?
Touch me, pulse my triplet-timed chest, know that it beats for
One-two-three, two-two-three, three-two-three you.

What can I do about this body
Except feel no right to be wanted,
With the clouds outside mirroring my feelings.

What I would do to your body
Has never actually passed my lips,
But has played over in my mind
At least a hundred times.

You said I cared more about the people on posters than myself,
Posters that I had in my room, of people now dead
or those that never existed (of those I wanted to be).
At least that is what I imagine you saying
Played over a hundred times yes, it may be true.

But honestly I care less about those on the wall around my bed
And more about the people I dream of in it.

I’ll love you from vantage points and Haziness
        mountains permeating my thoughts but still undeterred
It was all hands to shoulders and smiles
        a group of thoughts that won’t seem to go away
,     , I love you,
        There is no more time.

Between two expanses of obligations lies nowhere time,
It’s one in the morning and my breath smells like something slipped into my coffee
But I’m up anyways so there’s writing in scattered papers,
****** lips from biting, and jagged nails, too.

Winter eight through eleven was filled with things I don’t remember,
Now Mia in a white dress says she won’t be back next year
And suddenly everything is laid out so clear:
Eighteen months and the only difference is where I put my stuff,
Family is breaking and a straight face is the only way to save one.

muted light, smell of warmth,
music somewhere in the background
metered breathing and subtle movements

family is here, family is safe
but where is my head: lost in dreams